Fat Tire Off-road Tri - TriathlonSprint

I was in the last wave and I was pretty much the last one in the water. I didn't want to deal with any craziness at the start. I felt great! My breathing was just right, no problems with bilateral breathing at all. I started passing people right away and even caught a couple from the wave ahead. I am really happy with this swim. When I first got in a lake a couple of months ago, I hyperventilated and had to hang on to the back of a kayak for most of the time. On Saturday, there was no freakiness, felt completely comfortable. Never had to switch strokes, I crawled the entire distance. Didn't need to rest. I only stopped to check my sighting and once to yell at a gal who was going completely off-course. Poor woman, she went to a back stroke and did a 90 degree turn somehow and was headed out of the course!

I need to start working on speed now that I'm comfortable in the water. I get into a funny little zen-meditative state while swimming and need to remember that its a race! Also need to practice sighting a bit more.

Struggled with my wetsuit as usual. Its fine getting it off my feet, I have issues getting it off my shoulders!

Quit dawdling! Need to keep practicing with the wetsuit. Oh! I really wanted to stop and kiss a volunteer as I was leaving the transition. He saw my age on my calf (37) and said "you don't look a day over 27". Bless that man!!! Have to say, that made my race :-)

Fun, fun, fun!!! This was a great singletrack trail. Dusty, lots of turns, but not too terribly technical. If you are a good MTB-er you would ROCK this course. Me, I don't do much singletrack anymore and just had a blast! The course was exceptionally well marked. There were 3 techical sections that I walked. 1 of the sections I really had to walk, little rock outcrop with a steep drop, the other 2 I probably could have made it but there was high crash potential. Other than that, just enough rocks to jump and whoopedy-do's. My only complaint on this, and really the only complaint on the whole race, was that this course was 2 loops. A large loop and then a little loop. The loops overlapped at the end. I happened to be in that convergence on my first loop at the same time as the super fast guys were finishing their second loop. Racing singletrack is a bit stressful when you've got guys barrelling up behind you screaming "track, track" and you've got to bail off the trail. I probably lost a good 10 minutes having to pull off so the speed demons could get by. For the rest of the course passing wasn't a big deal at all. Everyone was real friendly and I only had to wait to pass a few times.

Don't race so conservatively. I took it pretty easy on the bike. I didn't know the course very well and wanted to save my legs. Looking back, I took it WAY too easy.

No problems.

Need to speed it up. In both the transitions, I was more concerned with getting everything I needed than with speed. Now I know I like my transition set up, just need to get faster at it.

Oh, ouch. I had plenty of energy, I think I probably didn't drink enough on the bike for the heat though. But man, oh man, was this a tough little run. 500' of elevation gain right off the bat, over probably a half to 3/4 mile. Whew! Did a good bit of "power hiking" as did everyone around me. Ripped down the backside though, very, very fun! It was really getting hot by then and it was taking its toll on me. I felt like my legs had the energy, but I was just overheating. I've had heatstroke before and I do NOT screw around with this. If the weather had been cooler I believe I could have shaved a significant amount off this time and been much closer to 30 minutes.

Not much really. Just race harder.

Walk to the water station, walk to the beer station. Walk to the beer station again. Hey, it was New Belgium, what can I say!! :-)


Really, only the heat in the run. I felt like the biking was me just trying to play conservatively. Now I know I can push a bit harder.


This was a fantastic race. I learned a lot. It was my first race in about 6 years and I feel really happy with my performance. I raced way too conservatively, but that's pretty easy to fix. I feel like my fitness is right on target. I had everything I needed gear wise. This was a really great course! The bike was fun, the run was a great little challenge. I have to say that it was one of the best organized races I've done - thank you Altitude Racing. If you're in the Front Range of CO, I would highly recommend this race next year! Plenty of volunteers, the course was perfectly marked, not many aid stations (none on the bike) but they made us well aware of that before the race. Plenty of food and drink afterwards. They had lots of water, lemonade, a great selection from New Belgium Brewery. Also had BBQ sandwiches, potato salad, and beans. I will be planning on doing this one again next year!